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STREP - Specific Targeted Research Project

Objectif

22,750,000 dyslexic individuals, including 2,500,000 dyslexic school children in the EC have a specific disorder in learning to read and spell (dyslexia). Since dyslexia occurs in all languages and presents a lifelong burden characterized by academic failure, poor school attendance, problems with social adjustments and unemployment. So far the etiology of dyslexia is poorly understood. Therefore, it is mandatory to tackle the problem from sev-eral directions. In a multicentre, multidisciplinary project we will investigate the biological basis of dyslexia by collecting pow-erful samples of subjects consistently characterised across EC populations on three different levels: genetics, environment, and neuroscience. Our aim is to understand the etiology of the disorder by integrating the results of the three levels. On the genetic level, we will use a systematic two stage approach to map and clone dyslexia susceptibility genes in samples of 800 families and 2000 dyslexic cases and 2000 controls. The identified risk-conferring genes will also be used to understand gene-gene and gene-environment interactions, as well as gene-specific contributions to a variety of neurobiological correlates of dyslexia. Environmental risk factors will be investigated in two samples, a longitudinal sample of 4000 twin pairs and a longitudinal sample of 100 at-risk and 100 non at-risk children. On the neuroscience level (structural and functional brain studies including cutting edge technology such as effective connectivity) we will investigate the prerequisites of reading and spelling development and the central stages of becoming a fluent reader. The resulting research group will be a high quality, adaptive and cooperative European consortium composed of psychologists, molecular biologists/geneticists, clinicians and genetic statisticians. With these combined efforts we are confident to improve the basis for the development of successful diagnostics and therapies.